Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a figure in film that has always astounded me with his use of atmosphere. My love for Cure and its liminal spaces always command my attention when I’m enjoying a viewing of this film. What’s even more poignant is his philosophical streak. He’s always been fascinated by the internal machinations of human behavior and I’ve appreciated how he combines this with intoxicating thrills. I would unironically say he’s one of the closest reincarnations of Hitchcock that we had. This film is probably his most spellbinding. Constantly asking us to gaze within the void of our core. “Who are you?” is a phrase constantly uttered by our main villain. It haunts our characters and victims like a specter. Detective Takabe finds himself at a loss during his investigation of gruesome murders appearing across Tokyo. How could seemingly normal, well adjusted people just one day decide to commit extreme violence? Our lead detective, Takabe, finds himself mulling over this. It’s a perplexing question that leaves haunting implications as we fall down this sinister rabbit hole.
I think the most startling factor is the framework on which Kurosawa decides to play out this juxtaposition of industrial alienation and violence. A polite society with a seemingly robotic devotion to rules and work leaving those with internal anguish to sit and fester. Mamiya, our villain; never commands people to kill. He simply brings their subconscious to the forefront. “I was once full, but what was inside me is outside now.”, is the descriptor he uses when describing his internal metamorphosis. He has nothing to fear. The writing turns abstract thought into a weapon. When I saw this at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles I found myself constantly becoming overwhelmed by the sound design and its droning qualities. It constantly reminds you that the boiling point for a person is closer to its edge than we’d like to believe. Shockingly, the most terrifying realization does not come in the form of investigation. It’s the sudden notion to our main character that the depths of his self-delusion has led him to lead a life that he no longer wishes to inhabit. Constantly fighting his urge to let it all go in this gorgeously shot Tokyo city that feels so vast yet simultaneously empty.
The violence and how it’s portrayed is startling. It appears tactically in a very unceremonious fashion that leaves a cold, bitter feeling. “That’s how you get when you hate someone from the bottom of your heart”, a policeman who murders his coworker says earlier in the film. The tone of this statement is probably the closest answer we get to this jigsaw puzzle of a film. The uncompromising devotion to showing how lackluster the reasoning is strikes a nihilistic chord within me that creates a gut reaction. It has that lack of explosive Hollywood flair most thrillers seem to cater to. There is never really a moment where we are tantalized by any of these sequences. It’s just ugly. I’ve always had an obsession with directors who refuse to feed the impulse of violence as entertainment. Not saying that I don’t enjoy horror and its carnage. I jokingly snicker that I love to indulge in exploitation films that feed the inner id. I just find it fascinating when a director, like Kurosawa, takes the time to let the actions and implications of such behavior seep into its audience. The unraveling of Detective Takabe starts as a subtle seed to blossom into a full blown existential shedding. The larger implications of the culture of Japan seem to be his biggest indicator of what crafts these problematic situations.
The surface of Japan and its devotion to capitalism seems so bright and efficient. When you peel the layers back you have a wound so torn open that it turns people into vengeful banshees. The scene that best exemplifies this for me is the manipulation of a female doctor by our villain. By Mamiya using her struggles with gender inequality in the workplace he effectively crafts her into an agent for revenge. Slicing a man’s face off in a bathroom. The malaise that simmers throughout the aura of the film haunts everyone, especially our main character. As he grapples with his inclinations, director Kiyoshi Kurosawa slowly seeps this world deeper and deeper into a core that is shaken by intense wrath. This is a masterful descent into the subconscious and how we struggle to balance desire, work, social pressures, and identity. As we see by the end…. We are only free when we finally accept our painful realities.
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